CONNECTING THE DOTS

PART 9: OVERPOPULATION IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA—EXPAND INTO WHAT?

Part 9: As small towns expand into big towns, the
costs, the pain, the results ain’t so hot, innumerates and idiots share the
same bed

This week, in the
Denver Post, a journalist wrote a
story that celebrated the addition of 600,000 people to Denver area in the last
two years. Mind you, that Denver suffers
2.25 million residents and a toxic Brown Cloud loaded with nastiness for
everyone’s lungs with every breath. Denverites must endure endless gridlocked
traffic, two dozen auto crashes daily, more than a few ‘flipped birds’ thrown, road
rage, potholes, cracking and degrading bridges, and a host of other tensions
created by a large city.

Nonetheless, the journalist reported a happy city
council member saying, ““It’s exciting,” said City Council woman Judy Montero.
“Hopefully, the growth will continue….”

That’s like telling a 440 pound competitor on the TV
game show “Biggest Losers” to go out and eat an entire grocery store full of
food to help him or her win the contest and prize money! Include, please, the cardiac unit with the
eating program!

Unfortunately, not one person enjoyed an interview to
expose the consequences of that 600,000 people added to Denver! The piece ‘celebrated’ growth as the
Denver
Post has for many decades. Not one
mention of severe air pollution, lung diseases, emphysema, water shortages
building along the front range, horrendous gridlock and environmental
degradation.

"Can you think of any problem in any area
of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term
solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further
increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?" Prof. Al Bartlett

Dr. Albert Bartlett, professor of Physics, emeritus, University
of Colorado, www.albartlett.org , wrote
a most compelling article in the Daily Camera, Boulder, Colorado, February 3,
2008, “What part of arithmetic does not hold in Boulder?” that needs to be read
by every governor, senator, House rep and city council member across the United
States. I consider it the most important thesis of the 21st century.

Harvard
researcher E.O. Wilson echoes Bartlett’s words, “The raging monster upon the
land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a
fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of
nations are not due to people but to poor ideology and land-use management is
sophistic.”

The
question grows, “How can the
Denver Post editors celebrate growth that has
brought so many problems to that city, and, if it grows to its expected
doubling to four million, how can they think anything will be improved?”

Dr.
Bartlett answers that, “It’s not clear why the legislature would think that the
people would want all these known consequences of growth. However, innumeracy
reigns. The promoters have demonstrated great skill in using public innumeracy
to get around minor details like the “will of the people.”

“In
the meantime, the innumerates act as though gasoline, natural gas and water
will always be with us at low cost and in unlimited quantities. Crude oil prices have increased from $20 a
barrel in 2002 to $100 a barrel in 2008. This largely suggests that the world
production of conventional oil peaked and is starting its inevitable decline,
just as was predicted in 1956.

“If
this rate of increase continues, we would look for oil to cost $500 a barrel in
another in six years or 2014. [Read the
book, $20 a gallon, by Chris Steiner at Forbes Magazine] Natural gas production
in North America has peaked, and this accounts for the rapid rise in the price
of natural gas, which is already creating hardships for some who like to have a
warm home or comfortable workplace in winter.

“Water
shortages and talk of restrictions on water use are frequently in the
news. By their continued promotion of
growth, the innumerates are speeding the arrival of painful but predictable
water shortages and consequent rationing of gasoline, natural gas and water in
the Rocky Mountain area. These shortages
and the accompanying high prices will remake the urban landscape in ways that
are probably not included in current “long-range” planning efforts of the city,
county and state. These problems cannot
be solved by a nickel’s worth of “
Smart Growth” tacked onto billions of dollars
worth of urban sprawl.

“The
arithmetic of population, resources and growth is inexorable. The consequences of the arithmetic cannot be
avoided by believing that “wishing will make it so” (
Walt Disney’s First Law).

“Many
years ago, an innumerate graduate of the University of Colorado wrote to me
saying, that he did not believe that this arithmetic of growth holds in
Boulder. What part of the arithmetic of
growth is it that innumerates don’t understand.”

Fellow
citizens, we do not want to manifest what he demonstrates in that lecture!
Trust me, I have seen it all across Asia in my bicycle travels. The results of ‘innumeracy’ prove quite
incompatible with human comfort and/or existence! Ask anyone from Bangladesh or Mexico City!

Chris
Clugston: Following is a high level summary of a detailed analysis of America’s
“predicament” and it’s inevitable consequences. The complete analysis and
associated models, evidence, and references can be found at
http://www.wakeupamerika.com/PDFs/On-American-Sustainability.pdf. On American Sustainability—Anatomy of a
Societal Collapse (Summary)

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents –
from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast
to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic
Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population
Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups,
high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world
population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100
Million Americans. Copies
available: 1 888 280 7715